Sobukwe Shukura | All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP)
We bring you revolutionary greetings from the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP). We thank the convenors, the World Anti-imperialist Platform and the local partner Communist Party Marxist Kenya.
The total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African Socialist Government must be the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution… (towards Communism) paraphrased from Kwame Nkrumah’s Quote in “Class Struggle in Africa”
“Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.”-Amilcar Cabral
In this short presentation let us give a brief but necessary history on the topic of Anti-imperialist and Anti-Facism in Africa. We cannot understand Africa’s relationship to Imperialism and fascism unless we understand Africa’s relationship to capitalism. The European or Trans-Atlantic slave trade along with European settler-colonial land theft is what produced the capital that made capitalism possible as explained in Eric Williams classic work “Capitalism and Slavery”, the millions of enslaved Africans in the Western Hemisphere, just declared the worst crime in history, is the crude accumulation that undergirded capitalist development. The indigenous genocide conducted by European settlers in the Americas numbers in the 10s of millions, wiping out whole indigenous nations in some Caribbean islands.
These settler-genocides also ravaged Africa with large European Setter occupations from Southern Africa, to Kenya and Algeria, also subjects of British and French Imperialism, and also critical points of African resistance.
These crimes preceded Imperialism.
Capitalist Imperialism brought us Endless War.
Africa was critical in the dawn of Western capitalism and essential to maintain imperialism.
Africa’s vast mineral resources spawned countless wars:
1. Wars of Imperialist aggression
2. Wars of African Resistance and Liberation against imperialism
3. Wars between the imperialists themselves for African resources and labor.
It’s in this context we understand Africa as the focal point of Western Imperialism.
Socialist Revolution in Russia and China was a major blow for Imperialism. The Fascist/Imperialist conflict WW2 weakened Western Europe and made the United States the leading Imperialist power. The dollar became the de facto instrument of finance capital. The U.S. formed NATO to defend Imperialist interest in Africa and around the globe.
The revolutionary Pan-Africanist struggle for national liberation completely changed the face of Imperialism in Africa. The All African People’s Conference in 1958, brought together all the freedom fighters across the continent. Liberated territories, in Ghana, Guinea, Tanzania, Libya, Egypt, Mali became bases for freedom fighters throughout the continent. Armed resistance in Kenya and Algeria forced Britain and France to adopt the Neo-colonial strategy that dominates Africa today. Imperialists created a neo-colonial African class of managers of Imperialist economic control.
Neo-colonialism is a form of Imperialism that acts not only as an instrument of its willing partners, the subservient national capitalist class in Africa, who acquire and show off their wealth. Neo-colonialism affects even those leaders, African States and institutions that resist Imperialism. Just four examples:
• Through the control of African monetary systems that are far from independent, African State to State exchanges and international trade is dominantly done in U.S. dollars, Euros and Francs/Cevas going through U.S. and European Imperialist banking institutions, strangling domestic currency and opening non-compliant African States to crippling sanctions from imperialist states.
• African Military alliances with Imperialist countries: (bases, airspace, training, joint and proxy operations, Africom, NATO) 29 bases spread over 15 territories. These military Imperialist assets threaten every African state, even sovereign African Military and cooperative alliances like the Sahel Alliance or SADC in the Southern African Region.
• U.S. and European Union economic control of the African Union. The African Union gets more than 60 percent of its funding from Imperialism, and outside forces, Imperialism is the very enemy the AU pledged to eliminate from Africa in the OAU/AU charters.
• Many Regional organisations like the East African Community, Economic Community of West Africa, Arab League and the South African Development Community are plagued with many member countries working with or trying to keep peace with Imperialist forces.
As Lenin declared, Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, Kwame Nkrumah in his book on Neo-colonialism said Neo-colonialism is the Last Stage of Imperialism. Once the Neo-colonial class is exposed Imperialism has nowhere else to go, Imperialism is completely unmasked, in Africa and Global South, we see the puppets and puppeteers.
Africa is in the second stage of its national liberation struggle, a fight for the control of its resources and labor, the control of our productive forces through the defeat of neo-colonialism, the defeat of the puppets and puppeteers. Cabral declared national liberation as an act of culture. Revolutionary Pan-Africanism is the highest expression of this culture.
Neo-colonialism is the antithesis of liberation; this is why it must be rooted out of every corner of the African continent. No liberated territory is safe, as long as Imperialist bases reside next door. How safe is the Sahel Alliance, with U.S. military bases flying in and out of Ghana or Nigeria at will.
AFRICOM is training with 40 African Armies. Since the start of AFRICOM in 2008 terrorism has increased by over 60 percent.
How safe is Senegal with the Imperialist military coup in Guinea Bissau? Kenya has hosted the Rapid Response Forces, M23 and is now a Non-NATO Ally. Imperialism and its Neo-colonial forces have Pan-African plans for Africa too. Their plans are Neocolonial and unites with Imperialism to protect the interest of the foreign corporations, to operate freely across African borders.
Revolutionary Pan-Africanism has to be developed in the revolutionary parties in Africa and supported by their revolutionary and anti-imperialist allies around the globe.
Revolutionary Pan-Africanism must be supported as a key component of the fight against Imperialism and Fascism reemerging in Europe, the United States and the Zionist Entity occupying Palestine. Socialist and Communist must revisit the 3rd internationalist proclamations on the colonial question in this era. The concrete examples are Russian and Chinese military aid and Cuba’s ultimate contribution of 10s of thousands troops on the ground doing the first phase of national liberation between 1950 to 1995. We must also heed the call of our late comrade Hugo Chavez for our next international.
Revolutionary Pan-Africanist must build coordination structures across the continent and the diaspora, they must answer Nkrumah’s call for an All African Committee for Political Coordination. Women, Workers, Peasants, Youth must be coordinated in every region and across the globe.
The emergence of the Nkrumah and Cabral schools in Azania/South Africa and Ghana organized by Pan-Africanism Today, the Cabral institute in Nigeria, the A-APRP summer school in Southern Africa and the Pan-African Socialist Alliance in Kenya and the West African Peoples organisation are introducing Revolutionary Pan-Africanism to a hold new generation.
Our responsibility today is to organise more critically to defend liberated and contested areas like the Alliance of Sahel States and current government in Senegal, the revolutionary parties being repressed in Guinea Bissau (PAIGC) and the PDG in Guinea Conakry. We must struggle to rid the Imperialist forces in the Horn of Africa, Sudan, Somalia, etc. Remember as Nkrumah said, organisation decides everything.
Organize, Organize, Organize!
The A-APRP Stands Ready for Revolution!
